No picture in Live TV on many channels

[acidfiend2003]

I think there were multiple, overlapping initial problems - like not knowing what channels I was supposed to be getting, not realising that the EPG should be updated properly first before assigning channels, not realising some channels are only available at different times of day, not knowing *anything* about VMR7/9/overlays/muxes/codecs/postprocessing and so on.

The problem with the black screen, as someone else posted on the forum, seems to stem from selecting the Nero Digital codec for live TV playback. It works on some channels but not on others. If you can reproduce this (just install Nero!) perhaps a warning message might be in order?

Even then, it does still seem to me that there must be a few bugs here and there. For example:-

1. Bleb plugin doesn't have the correct list of channels and there's no way to change them except to edit the XML. If you don't know what channels you are supposed to be getting, this one will drive you nuts until you discover the Radio Times XML grabber.

2. if you do two successive scans you *must* come out of config and go back in again or else get dupes in your list of scanned channels, this can play merry hell with the EPG.

3. Updating the EPG with an XMLTV file that contains a couple of added channels also seems to be a bit hazardous - just this evening having finally worked out the list of the 25 channels that I want and what order I want them, I had to flush the EPG completely and reassign all my channels from my most recent scan :mad:

4. you can assign two channels to the same channel ID in the "channels" dialog, and that makes the EPG go berserk.

5. Nero Digital codec doesn't seem to work with all UK Freeview channels.

6. Using the over-the-air EPG takes hours, and creates a massive 400mb TV show file in the root drive for no apparent reason

HTH
Dave

[sub]

1. Bleb plugin doesn't have the correct list of channels and there's no way to change them except to edit the XML. If you don't know what channels you are supposed to be getting, this one will drive you nuts until you discover the Radio Times XML grabber.

Specifcally, what do you mean? bleb only provides a subset of those channels available in the UK. You shouldnt have to edit the XML file.

The problem with the black screen, as someone else posted on the forum, seems to stem from selecting the Nero Digital codec for live TV playback. It works on some channels but not on others. If you can reproduce this (just install Nero!) perhaps a warning message might be in order?

5. Nero Digital codec doesn't seem to work with all UK Freeview channels.

No two decoders seem to behave the same. I typically recommend people either use the Intervideo or Cyberlink decoder. I dont personally use the Nero codecs, so I dont know anything about how well/badly they work. Nero seems to be just one many bad decoders or directshow components the user could install. Not really much I can do about this one.

6. Using the over-the-air EPG takes hours, and creates a massive 400mb TV show file in the root drive for no apparent reason

Have you tried the new release?

[acidfiend2003]

Specifcally, what do you mean? bleb only provides a subset of those channels available in the UK. You shouldnt have to edit the XML file.

Actually, pretty much all of the Freeview channels are there, and some of the TOTV premium channels (but that's after a brief look, and just thinking about digital terrestrial). I don't have my media PC booted at the moment so I can't see *exactly* what your Bleb plugin is pulling back, but I do specifically remember that it brings back a bunch of channels that are of limited use if you're a UK digital terrestrial viewer. I'll have a look later for you - but either way, it'd be nice to have the channels in groups so the user could specify "get all Freeview, get all TOTV, get all Sky Digital free-to-air etc.)

Have you tried the new release?

I'm using 09413 still, had no idea you'd done another release since last Thursday

Cheers
Dave

[sub]

I'm using 09413 still, had no idea you'd done another release since last Thursday

v0.94.13 is about two months old. The new v0.95.11 release improves the DVB EPG scanning.

I'll have a look later for you - but either way, it'd be nice to have the channels in groups so the user could specify "get all Freeview, get all TOTV, get all Sky Digital free-to-air etc.)

Sorry, no I wont be doing this. While this would be nice to have, users can already selected which channels they wish to receive using check boxes (yes, very manual I know). This is a big project, and I'm stretched pretty thin, so I have to spend my time carefully.

Realistically, I'd recommend UK users use either XMLTV or the DVB EPG, which gives them genre and rating info, and more control over their listings, and a much wider set of channels. The bleb option is only really their because in the early days XMLTV was too hard for many users, and their was no DVB EPG functionality.